Electronic equipment comes in many different brands, shapes and types. Examples include tablet computers, personal digital assistants (PDA:s), portable media players (e.g. MP3 players), palmtop computers, mobile terminals such as mobile telephone, digital cameras, game consoles, navigators, etc. A mobile communication terminal, or simply a mobile terminal, in the form of a smart phone with touch-sensitive display screen will be used as a non-limiting example of a portable electronic device in the following.
The present inventors have realized that users of mobile terminals are nowadays a very heterogeneous group in which there are considerable variations in terms of age, user experience, physiological motor ability, visual capacity, and general user preference. Existing touch sensor devices fail to fully appreciate this.
In prior art solutions it is possible to configure different speeds of the mouse click button in order to distinguish between a double click and a single click. It is also known to distinguish between a long and a short press on the touch screen by measuring the applied force. In addition, it is possible to configure a lower or higher sensibility level for all virtual or mechanical keys of the mobile terminal. However, none of the above mentioned solutions are sufficiently user-friendly.
There is thus a need for a mobile terminal that can be used and appreciated by a heterogeneous group of users, while still being easy to configure and inexpensive.
WO 2013/169865 discloses, in FIGS. 14A-16 and the associated description, an electronic device having a touch-sensitive user interface. User interface controls (such as buttons) which control important functions require a more intense or a longer actuation (higher time and/or intensity actuation threshold) than other controls which control less important functions. To provide an additional layer of safeguard against accidental or inadvertent actuation of a control which controls an important function, visual feedback is given to the user based on the intensity or duration of the user's contact with the control. In a preferred design, the visual feedback is given by changing the appearance of the control; this may for instance involve changing the fill color of the control (FIG. 14B), or by presenting a progress bar inside the control (FIGS. 14E, 14F and 14 G).
A drawback with this prior art approach can be seen in that it requires manipulation of the graphical design of the user interface to accommodate for the visual feedback capability. In other words, the user interface will have to be modified and hence look different from a standard-looking user interface, and this may in itself be confusing particularly to inexperienced users or visually impaired users. Also, the approach does not account for the fact that inexperienced users, visually impaired users or users with reduced physiological motor ability may have difficulties in accurately operating different controls in a user interface depending on the respective appearances of the controls.